LIVERPOOL'S bid to outlaw smoking in all pubs and clubs was stubbed out today.

Instead Health Secretary John Reid will permit smoking in the one-in-five pubs which do not serve food.

A staged ban in workplace and enclosed public places will stop well short of Liverpool council's bill, due to begin Parliamentary stages this month. Ministers will oppose the private legislation, ensuring it cannot go through.

Liverpool council will continue fighting to make the city smoke-free, but health minister Melanie Johnson said: "We will not support localised decisions of this kind. There will be a national definition of the no smoking laws, with no independent action.

"The idea you would have smokers in Liverpool who would cross the city border to go to a smoking pub makes no sense at all."

Dr Reid's compromise plan will ensure that:

* By the end of 2006 all government offices and NHS premises will have a smoking ban.

* By the end of 2007 smoking will be vetoed in offices, factories, enclosed public places and restaurants.

* By the end of 2008 smoking will be allowed only in pubs which do not serve food, although crisps and similar bar snacks may be exempted.

Smoking will not be allowed in the immediate bar areas of the 20% of pubs ministers estimate will go for the smoking option.

Smoking pubs and clubs will open under national orders, rather than by the local licensing authority.

Ms Johnson said: "There is huge public support for a smoking ban in public places and workplaces but there is very limited support, about 20%, for a ban in all pubs and clubs."

Dr Reid and his team insist their plan will still leave most of Britain a smoke-free zone as part of their war on heart and lung disease.

But Liverpool council chief Mike Storey pledged to fight to push the Liverpool bill through Parliament, adding: "This proposal is a half-hearted, halfway house and a compromise which will please no-one."

City environmental health chief Andy Hull said: "This is a non-starter. The only effective way to eradicate the risks of secondary smoking is to stop people smoking in workplaces."

Riverside MP Louise Ellman is due to present the Liverpool city council's Bill to Parliament next week.

Cllr Joe Anderson, leader of Liverpool's Labour group, said: "There are some good parts of this white paper but I don't think it goes far enough and for people to suggest we have a ban in some places and not others is ridiculous."

Dr Reid's efforts to improve the nation's health will cost the taxpayer an extra #1bn.

Other measures in the white paper include a ban on junk food TV advertising before 6pm and a traffic light system of labelling healthy and unhealthy food.

Director Frances Molloy said today: "It's a travesty. If the government accepts that second-hand smoke affects workers then it should be across the board. You can't protect some workers and not others."